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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

SPRINGFIELD [Illinois] —— Two lobbyists with no prior teaching experience were allowed to count their years as union employees toward a state teacher pension once they served a single day of subbing in 2007, a Tribune/WGN-TV investigation has found.

Steven Preckwinkle, the political director for the Illinois Federation of Teachers, and fellow union lobbyist David Piccioli were the only people who took advantage of a small window opened by lawmakers a few months earlier. ...

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This is absolutely outrageous. There are plenty of substitute teachers around, Ilion. These guys inserted themselves into the schools to tap the pension plan.

"Over the course of their lifetimes, both men stand to receive more than a million dollars each from a state pension fund that has less than half of the assets it needs to cover promises made to tens of thousands of public school teachers."

I love it when the university professor complains that the teacher's retirement plan was set up for teachers, and that it already is underfunded vs its obligations. Don't like the company you're keeping professor?

The union reps stress that the two union lobbyists didn't break any laws. So what? The laws themselves were the result of corrupt insider manipulations, and as such were immoral. These two acted immorally, to the approval of the Illinois legislature, the school teachers, and the union that represents them. It more than disgusts me.

No matter what the specific sphere of interest, this sort of corruption is the inevitable result of allowing "the government" to pick the winners and losers. And, in fact, such corruption isn't really so much the result of having "the government" to pick the winners and losers, as it is the other side of the coin.